What is the difference between Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B and Llama 3.1 70B?

Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B is a 8B model from dphn (Llama 3 family), while Llama 3.1 70B is a 70.6B model from Meta (Llama 3 family). Compare their VRAM requirements above to see which fits your GPU or Mac.

Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B vs Llama 3.1 70B

Side-by-side comparison of VRAM requirements, quantization, context length, and hardware compatibility.

Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B

dphn · 8B

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Llama 3.1 70B

Meta · 70.6B

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Specifications

	Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B	Llama 3.1 70B
Parameters	8B	70.6B
Context	8K	—
Architecture	LlamaForCausalLM	—
License	Other	Llama 3.1 Community
Downloads	13.1K	90.8K
Released	Jan 2026	Sep 2024

VRAM by Quantization: Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B vs Llama 3.1 70B

Quantization	Bits	Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B VRAM	Llama 3.1 70B VRAM
Q2_K	3.40	—	33.0 GB
Q3_K_M	3.90	—	37.8 GB
Q3_K_S	3.50	—	34.0 GB
Q4_K_M	4.80	—	46.6 GB
Q5_K_M	5.70	—	55.3 GB
Q6_K	6.60	—	64.0 GB
Q8_0	8.00	—	77.6 GB

Verdict

Llama 3.1 70B is the more widely downloaded of the two.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B and Llama 3.1 70B?: Dolphin 2.9 Llama3 8B is a 8B model from dphn (Llama 3 family), while Llama 3.1 70B is a 70.6B model from Meta (Llama 3 family). Compare their VRAM requirements above to see which fits your GPU or Mac.